Turning 44

Tomorrow, is my birthday, and I will be 44.  I think the 40's are a time for deep contemplation of life.  I can see why many a mid-life crisis happens in the 40's.  In your 20's, you have entered into adulthood and everything is about establishing independence.  In your 30's, you are digging deep into your career, your family, and life and you build stability.  In your 40's though, you realize that fast approaching are the 50's and 60's, with all the health issues, and retirement income worries.  You realize that you may never get to retire.  Your parents' health starts to fail and in many cases, you lose one or both parents.  Your children in many instances have either left the nest, are about to, or even worse, they hit puberty...right at the time you begin to hit menopause.  I think God had a design flaw in that plan....or maybe I should have had my kids younger.  By the time you get to your mid 40's, you realize there is a very good chance you may not live another 44 years....it's humbling.

As a woman, I think that another thing starts to happen as well.  Maybe something that doesn't happen to men until much later...which is that you realize that many people will start to see you as a middle aged woman, with all that implies.  You realize that you are pretty much past child bearing years, while the men still have years of viable sperm left.  Men are classified as "distinguished" as they age, while women get plastic surgery or Botox themselves to death...we have only to look at Barbara Walters and her plastic face to see what society attempts to require of us.
These sorts of stereotypes and story lines about middle-aged woman sometimes lead woman to engage in our own Peter Pan'ish fantasies in which we run around acting half our age if only to prove that we are hip or whatever we are trying to prove. 

BUT, I think I would like us to reclaim something.  In many ancient societies, the older woman was revered as a wise teacher, a mother to all, and a voice of timeless truths.  Somewhere along the way we have lost the idea that age can lend something to a discussion, to society.  Our quest for the fountain of youth and all things young, hip and fast, has caused us to downplay the important role of all ages in our culture, and the contributions each stage of life can make.  Experience should count for something.  Somehow, in our modern world, maybe starting in the 1960's,  youth culture forced the elderly off the stage, and the elderly ceded that ground to the youth.  We have become victims of corporate marketing to such an extent we now "type" people by which generation they belong to. 

Well, this is my battle cry of Revolution a la Tawanda from Fried Green Tomatoes fame.  Don't cede your experience, your authority, or your wisdom to our youth infatuated culture.  Keep your balance by having one foot in modernity and one foot grounded in experience.  Don't let anyone make you feel less valued as you age.  If I think about people I admire who aged gracefully, Katharine Hepburn immediately jumps to mind.  She was herself, and true to herself to the end, all the while not being critical of others, but staying grounded in who she was while at the same time adapting to the world around her. 

As women, we face challenges of biology unique to our feminine identities.  But we don't have to be held captive to expectations, stereotypes or generational categories.  Embrace your 40's, and live life fully.  By this time in your life, you have learned enough to know who you are, so go out into the world, confidant about that identity and live, laugh and love.  Enjoy every moment, because as we have learned by the time we reach our 40's, time is precious!